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The investment firm headed by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal says its first quarter net profits climbed 20.5 percent, boosted by the sale of one of its hotels in China and a plot of land in Saudi Arabia.

Kingdom Holding Co. said in a statement posted on the Saudi stock exchange's Web site that net income for the three month period ending in March stood at 90.6 million riyals versus 75.2 million riyals in the corresponding quarter of 2010.

KHC, a major shareholder in Citigroup, has stakes in a variety of other major western giants, including News Corp. and Apple Inc.

The Egyptian economy shrank 7 percent in the third quarter of the fiscal year that ends on June 30, after a revolt that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak, Finance Minister Samir Radwan said.

Exports fell 40 percent, the value of imports increased due to higher global commodity prices and tourism revenue “went away,” Radwan told Cairo-based ONTV network in an interview late yesterday. Gross domestic product expanded 5.6 percent in the previous three months, according to government figures.

“The stoppage of economic life has affected business,” Radwan said. “The number of businesses that went bankrupt is big.” Radwan, who couldn’t be reached for comment today in Cairo, didn’t say whether the contraction rate was based on the same period a year ago or the previous quarter.

Turkish stocks, bonds and the Turkish Lira may decline should Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party, or AKP, increase its share of the vote to win a two-thirds majority at parliamentary elections in less than two months time, Royal Bank of Scotland Group said.

“Markets generally are fearful that armed with a two- thirds constitutional majority the AKP will push ahead with controversial constitutional reform, moving Turkey more to a presidential system of government, with the centralization of more power in the hands of prime minister, perhaps even president, Erdoğan,” chief emerging markets economist Timothy Ash said in an e-mailed report to clients on Wednesday. The “market sweet spot” is “the maintenance of the status quo,” he said.

Erdoğan’s party leads the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, by an average of 21 percentage points in three polls by MetroPoll, Konsensus and Iksara published between March 10 and March 25. That would translate into a third consecutive parliamentary majority should the results be repeated on June 12.

Dubai’s benchmark stock index advanced to the highest this year on investor expectations first-quarter earnings will exceed estimates and after oil increased for a second day.

Emaar Properties PJSC (EMAAR), builder of the world’s tallest skyscraper, rose to the highest in three months. Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Co. (DU), the phone company known as Du, gained 1.3 percent. The DFM General Index (DFMGI) climbed 1.6 percent to 1,680.96 at the 2 p.m. close Dubai, the highest since Dec. 9. The measure has surged 24 percent from a low of 1,352.24 on March 3, after surpassing the 20 percent threshold some consider the beginning of a bull market.

“There are positive expectations for first-quarter results,” said Mohammed Ali Yasin, chief investment officer at Abu Dhabi-based financial services company CAPM Investments PJSC. “On the macro picture, higher oil prices have supported the rally.” Investor optimism that the U.A.E. will secure an upgrade in June at MSCI Inc. has also helped gains, he said. [bn:WBTKR=DIB:UH]

The Securities Exchange of the Dubai International Financial Centre, NASDAQ Dubai, recently issued a consultation paper (1/2011) to facilitate public discussion regarding proposed changes to its Listing Rules. The proposed changes relate to both the framework and content of the Listing Rules, which have been in place since September 2005.

The amendments are designed to increase participation by individual investors (both institutional and retail) in initial public offerings (IPOs) and to create a new and more flexible regulatory regime. The amendments are aimed at further attracting family companies as well as small and medium-sized enterprises, with a view to creating new investment opportunities.

NASDAQ Dubai has continued to promote an open dialogue with its market participants and has developed working groups with those participants through the course of the past two years to ensure that sufficient feedback had been received before seeking comment on the proposed changes.

UAE stock markets have enjoyed a brief rally of more than 20 per cent since the worst point of the regional unrest last month when Saudi protests were threatened that did not materialize. This relief rally is likely to fade as investors take profits and sell before May and go away.

The National Bank of Abu Dhabi brought investors down to earth with a bump yesterday, posting a 10 per cent fall in first quarter profits, down to $252 million due to write-downs against non-performing loans.

Aluminium. From tin cans to airplanes to power lines, the metal is used in just about everything we need to survive.

It is fitting then, that Emirates Aluminium (Emal), a plant dedicated to producing tonnes of it, is expanding in the UAE. Part of diversifying an economy means producing the basic materials a society needs, as we reported yesterday.

It is fitting too, that the location of the plant sits halfway between Abu Dhabi and Dubai - a testament to the collaborative nature of Emal. As a joint venture between Dubai Aluminium (Dubal) and Mubadala started in 2007, it is one of the largest Emirati companies that represents a long-term collaboration of mutual benefit.

If you were taking a quick glance at the UAE's publicly listed companies, you could easily think Dana Gas is a favourite among investors.

The Sharjah oil and gas producer has a strong international profile but also many interests throughout the region, including promising projects in Iraq, Egypt and the waters of the Gulf.

Oil is trading near US$120 (Dh440.75) a barrel and the Dubai Financial Market, where Dana shares are listed, is entering a bull market for the first time since Dubai World's debt restructuring was announced.

Dana Gas is considering a plan to list its shares in London to try to raise its international profile and reduce its reliance on lacklustre local markets.

It comes less than three weeks after Oman's Renaissance Services pulled plans to list its Dubai oilfield services unit Topaz Energy and Marine in London. Kuwait Energy has also deferred a share sale in London.

The Dana board has been considering a London listing among other actions to help lift the Sharjah oil and gas producer's share price, which the company's chief executive says has been buffeted by political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa.

"By the end of the first quarter of this year, the bank successfully covered, in full, its residual losses from 2008," said Ali Al-Rashaid Al-Bader, Gulf Bank's chairman, in a statement sent to Reuters announcing the results.

"The bank continued to improve its quarterly profits with good rates, reflecting the general improvement in the bank's core banking and credit activities, and the general improvement in the national economic conditions," he said.

Abu Dhabi-based Eshraq Properties Co, a real-estate firm backed by Saudi and UAE investors, yesterday said it will launch an initial public offering for 55% of its shares, in what would be the first IPO of a UAE real-estate company in years.

The IPO aims to raise 825mn UAE dirhams ($225mn) and the new shares will be listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange about two months from the subscription period, which begins May 1, according to Eshraq managing director Sulaiman al-Dhalaan.

“We don’t have any loans, we are grade A,” al-Dhalaan told Zawya Dow Jones in an interview at the Cityscape exhibition in Abu Dhabi. Royal Capital is lead manager on the IPO, while National Bank of Abu Dhabi is lead agent.

"We're back, of course we're back,' Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum told Bloomberg TV in an interview on September 26. His confidence in Dubai's economic resurgence was reinforced days later in a US$1.25 billion Dubai sovereign bond issue that was four times oversubscribed, signaling the emirate's return to the fixed-income market. Renewed investor confidence in Dubai came on the heels of the debt restructuring agreement hammered between troubled state-linked conglomerate Dubai World and the majority of creditors to reschedule about US$25 billion of debt.

Dubai couldn't have done any better. It now stands to benefit from investor perception that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar are insulated from the protests that have rocked the rest of the Arab world. "The Dubai story may conversely have benefitted (from the unrest) as it is regarded as a more stable jurisdiction," says Giambattista Atzeni, corporate trust vice president and MENA business manager at BNY Mellon. "If Dubai had not put in place a coordinated action plan for its debt, it might not been able to be in the same position regionally today."

Even before protests began, Dubai's US$1.25 billion issue triggered a flood of bond sales in the region, with investor demand for Gulf bonds proving so vigorous it prompted state-controlled Qatar Telecom to return to the market with a US$1.25 billion bond sale in October days after the Doha-based firm sold a US$1.5 billion bond that attracted more than US$15 billion in orders.

The private sector will be allowed to invest in the Hessyan Power and Desalination Complex — the biggest project of its kind in the region, Saeed Mohammad Al Tayer, vice-chairman of the Supreme Council for Energy, managing director and chief executive of the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa), told Gulf News on the sidelines of the Dubai Global Energy Forum yesterday.

"Dewa has paved the way for the private sector to enter the power generation and utility businesses through a private-public partnership in [the] Hessyan project," Al Tayer said.

Upon completion, the Hessyan Power and Desalination Complex will produce 9,000 megawatts of power and 720 million gallons of water each day.

A member of the ruling family in Dubai is set to join other Middle Eastern investors in the market for European football clubs by buying a team in La Liga, Spain’s top tier.

Royal Emirates Group, a collection of companies owned by Sheikh Butti bin Suhail al-Maktoum, is set to unveil the identity of the club, understood to be Getafe, at a ceremony in Dubai on Thursday.

Associated Press reported Kaiser Rafiq, Royal Emirates’ managing director, as saying the deal was worth $90m, a figure Royal Emirates’ said was “about right”. It declined to confirm or deny whether the identity of the club was Getafe.

An anti-corruption website this week launched the third in a series of YouTube videos claiming that Russian tax officials who are blamed for the death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky have been lavishly spending money they allegedly stole from the state.

Senior staff at Moscow Tax Office 28 have been buying luxurious properties in Dubai and have held swelling offshore bank accounts after embezzling $230m through a fake tax refund, the website, called “Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky” (www.russian-untouchables.com), alleges in its 14-minute English-language footage.